Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights

The Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights (CPPR) is an anti-health reform group that claims to be a "nonpartisan, grassroots coalition of patients, healthcare professionals, advocacy groups, and engaged citizens who are concerned about the current healthcare debate going on in Washington." CPPR is managed by the Republican lobbying firm DCI Group, a grassroots consulting firm that has previously been used by Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds to help form fake "grassroots" smokers' rights groups to help defeat smoking bans. DCI has worked for health insurance companies in the past: In 2002, the American Prospect reported that DCI had been hired by a group called the Health Benefits Coalition, a trade association of for-profit health maintenance organizations (HMOs) who were trying to “thwart congressional action on the patients’ bill of rights.”

DCI Group staffers have acknowledged that they do in fact coordinate PR for the CPPR. CPPR should not be be confused with Conservatives for Patients Rights, a different front group organized by Rick Scott to oppose health care reform. CPPR has been engaged in organizing lobbying efforts to oppose health care reform and publishing op-eds across the country that contain misinformation about the public option.

CPPR seeks to prevent the U.S. Congress from including a “public option” in the health reform legislation.

Sourcewatch resources

 * Astroturf
 * Grassroots
 * Americans for Prosperity
 * Patients First